Throughout July, the six largest countries in Europe did not provide Ukraine with any military assistance, for the first time since the start of the war. Politico writes about this with reference to the data of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which calculates the amount of assistance to Kiev.
The publication does not name the countries in question, but mentions Germany and France. Politico writes that they are "resisting the supply of weapons to Ukraine" and may weaken the moment Ukraine launches a decisive counteroffensive.
Christophe Trebesh, head of the Ukraine Support Tracker project, said that the number of arms supplies from Europe to Ukraine has been declining since the end of April. “Even though the war has entered a critical phase, new relief initiatives have dried up,” he said.
According to Trebes, European countries should take the war in Ukraine as seriously as the eurozone crisis or the coronavirus pandemic. It was these two events that prompted Europe to invest several billion euros in emergency funding. Thus, the pandemic recovery fund includes approximately €800 billion in loans and grants. The total European military assistance to Ukraine is only a small part of this amount.
In early June, Der Spiegel wrote that Germany was refusing to supply tanks to Ukraine because of fears that Ukraine might "become self-confident" and bring them into Russian territory. The second likely reason is Germany's distrust of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
